Morton Gould

Morton Gould was born in Richmond Hill, New York, in 1913. He was recognized early on as a child prodigy with abilities in improvisation and composition. His first composition was
published at age six. Gould studied at the Institute of Musical Art in New York, his most important teachers were Abby Whiteside and Vincent Jones. During the Depression, Gould,
while still a teenager, worked in New York City playing piano in movie theaters, as well as with vaudeville acts. When Radio City Music Hall opened, Gould was hired as the staff
pianist. By 1935, he was conducting and arranging orchestral programs for New York's WOR radio station, where he reached a national audience via the Mutual Broadcasting System,
combining popular programming with classical music.

In the 1940s, Gould appeared on the Cresta Blanca Carnival program as well as The Chrysler Hour on CBS where he reached an audience of millions. In 1942, he composed music for the
short film Ring of Steel, directed by Garson Kanin and produced by the Film Unit of the U.S. Office for Emergency Management.

Gould composed Broadway scores such as Billion Dollar Baby and Arms and the Girl; film music such as Delightfully Dangerous, Cinerama Holiday, and Windjammer; music for
television series such as World War One and the miniseries Holocaust; and ballet scores including Interplay, Fall River Legend, and I'm Old Fashioned.

Gould's music, commissioned by symphony orchestras all over the United States, was also commissioned by the Library of Congress, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the
American Ballet Theatre, and the New York City Ballet. His ability to seamlessly combine multiple musical genres into formal classical structure, while maintaining their
distinctive elements, was unsurpassed, and Gould received three commissions for the United States Bicentennial.

As a conductor, Gould led all of the major American orchestras as well as those of Canada, Mexico, Europe, Japan, and Australia.[5] With his orchestra, he recorded music of many
classical standards, including Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" on which he also played the piano. He won a Grammy Award in 1966 for his recording of Charles Ives' first symphony,
with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 1983, Gould received the American Symphony Orchestra League's Gold Baton Award. In 1986 he was elected to the American Academy and
Institute of Arts and Letters.